Bama, can you please elaborate on what "abuses" southern white males had to endure during this time, and in doing so can you please provide numbers as to how many whites (who weren't Jewish and northern) were lynched compared to blacks? The south's lack of economic growth was, like the Civil War, a self-inflicted wound. I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is the south's economy was based on slavery, the south chose to fight to keep that system alive, the south was defeated, and the era of reconstruction was necessary to ensure that blacks were treated fairly and equitably. If northern politicians can be blamed for anything is is for allowing the "redeemer" governments to come to power. Southern "leaders" fought economic development tooth and nail because they couldn't abide "yankees" spoiling what they viewed as God's green earth and their way of life in antebellum times. Jim Crow did not come about because of any "abuses" whites suffered but rather because southerners feared that blacks would realize basic human rights and did whatever they could to ensure subjugation would continue.

It's important to realize that the South got off very light, historically speaking anyway. I often hear how the South has the poorest counties in the US. The truth is that's spilt evenly... Pine Ridge Reservation in SD has consistantly taken the cake for the poorest area in the US... average ANNUAL income of $700 in 1990.

A couple years ago someone posted the list of the 20 richest counties in the US, the old CS had 8 IIRC. I was told Florida counties, & Atlanta didn't count. Never could figure out that bit of self defeating attitude. What exactly is Southern? Who qualifies as Southern & why?

Miss Walker, by law my wife was illegitimate until w/in the last decade and my own marriage was only just legal in SC because of mixed race status. We're talking about mixed race marriages being still illegal in the last half of the 20th Century, not 19th! Desegregation laws were needed on the books in the last half of the 20th Century in SC for a very real reason.

My grandmother in law lives in the bottoms on Kingstree SC... the police don't go to that side of the tracks for a reason. And I readily admit I slept there w/ a loaded 9mm under my pillow. Until well into my lifetime the hope for a black man or woman getting any kind of justice in the SC justice system was a joke at best. Laws were not enforced w/ Lady justice being blind in SC, Alabama, or many other places in the old South. thank God things have changed.

Now is such a thing a direct descendent of the trainwreck that was Reconstruction? How many generations passed between the end of the CW & the Civil Rights movement?

The blame for the mess of the South... can be painted w/ a pretty broad brush and there is no way to point a finger one way or the other w/out pointing 3 fingers back at oneself.

But what we cannot fool ourselves w/ is how lucky the South was, yes I said lucky. A Mongol or Roman army dealing w/ a rebellious province would have left territory that was barren still. And as late as the 1800's.. look to India after the various "mutinies" or Spain after France... sweet God look at that and praise god the South never dealt w/ a French occupying army! Shall we talk about the Germans in Poland, or Russians... anywhere? That's what I'm talking about. The South never faced systematic rape, murder and torture... any who say otherwise are talking through their hat.

booklover wrote: Good grief guys, how much longer is this going to go on?

Best
Rob

The rest of our lives at least... it's gone on 150+ w/out respite. So long as either side can play the race card, put upon card or woe is me card it will remain. The Klan in the South wasn't decapitated until, what the 1970's? When it comes to cultural FUBAR's we Americans can screw it up w/ the best of them.

THat said compared w/ the rest of the world... by god we're absolute angels!

Wow, really good and interesting things unfolding here on the CWi Discussion Board so quickly that I just can't keep up, especially with Christmas coming so very quickly. Am looking forward to catching up with it all in the lull between Christmas and New Years.

Just wanted to throw this in quickly - and I know that I mentioned it much earlier in the year on a different thread:

In 2006, I decided that I finally had to address Reconstruction. So, I went to the Local University Library, which allows me to check out an unlimited number of books for six months at a time. I carefully chose twelve books, and one of them was, GET THIS: A HistoryOFthe history of Reconstruction. It is such a dark, disturbing, complex, confused, and ugly time in American history - truly twisted- that one author wrote a history on how it had been variously approached and studied, in conjunction with changing social attitudes and growing historical awareness, over the years, for any novice trying to come to grips with it.

As for the other eleven books, well, I get a headache and grow depressed just thinking of it all.....

Booklover and Johan, you are confusing or equating reconstruction with the later Jim Crow laws. I am of the opinion that reconstruction led to Jim Crow. Lynchings did indeed take place during reconstruction, but the Jim Crow era is better remembered as the time of lynchings. Can I justify them..no, and I won't try. they were wrong, and so far as I know, no member of my family was ever involved in one, Thank God! the abuses Johan describes to his Grandmother in law are Jim Crow in action as I don't believe she lived during reconstruction, unless Johan is a lot oldeer than his pic would lead us to believe and unless he went to college in 1890 instead of 1990..LOL..back on track.. the scene Johan describes of police not going into certain neighborhoods, and sleeping with a pistol under his pillow could describe scenes in any number of large cities today..some for the same reasons, others for different reasons. Regarding the issue of the "legitimacy" of his marriage..God, not the state grants the ultimate legitimacy..but was this an actively enforced law that descriminated against you and your wife, or was it a relic of the past that was still on the books because no one either knew it was there or had not bothered to removeit? If it is the later, I would suggest that there are idiot laws on the books in every state that are unenforcable, and ignored, but still there.
Someone said that in counting southern pre capita income, Florida and Atlanta were never counted by southernors. The reason is that there are no (or very few) southerners in those places, having been colonized by Northernors in the past few decades.

Finally, Booklover, you asked me just what "abuses" white males had to endure during reconstruction... OK in a nutshell..
first, look at the segments of society.. White males, Blacks, and women.
Women did not vote or work outside the home in that era...north or south
Blacks, male and female, for the most part had recently been slaves and while some could read, most could not.
White males, like their counterparts in the north were the ones who pretty much ran things..and not ONLY the plantation owners..
Look at the south..the economy does not exist it is in tatters. All former members of the confederate military are unable to vote or hold office... there is no money to buy anything... and so who rebuilds society and the economy?
Women can't vote.. BLACKS..except they are for the most part illiterate and as unqualified for public office as some of the folks running to president today...but we have a solution, grab yer stuff and head south ..thar's money to be made..
And so they came, befriended the blacks in office, influenced them, got ruionous tax laws passed and when the land owners could not pay the taxes, picked up the land for a pittance.. we have a name for them..carpet baggers..Of course there were southerners who saw a chance to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbors.. we have a name for them too .... scalawags.. the vilest thing one southerner can call another.
All the while, if a former member of the confederte forces was caught in public wearing a part of a uniform, they were jailed.. if thats the only clothes you have, what to do?
Put yourself in that position, you are that white male.. what do you do when you see your farm gone, your family destitute and no hope in sight...maybe it is 5 6 7 years into reconstruction.. you fight back and you strike out at those who are making your life miserable..and unfortunately for race relations you target those you can hurt..blacks..not unlike Sunni/Sh'ite muslems are striking back at each other for former hurts.
The result when this was finally over was Jim Crow..and the result of that was bus boycotts in Montgomery, Black Sunday in Selma, and a murder in Memphis.... followed by the questioning of the legitimacy of Johan's marriage.

The South was decimated by the effects of the war. Check the papers of the Freedman's Bureau. How many lands were given to blacks by the US Government? No the owners were not paid.
The State Governments were run by appointed governors and Military Districts were set up. The South was under Military rule. South Carolina was run by Governors from the North. Southern whites could not hold office. The vast majority of the SC Legislature was black and few were even literate.
Whites could not vote. Many were actually turned away by Federal forces at the polls. There was no self determination. In the mean time the states were being systemically looted and bankrupted by the appointed officials and the "elected" blacks. This is not to say all of the representatives in the State Legislature were corrupt. Some like Robert Smalls of Beaufort worked hard for his fellow man.
Holding office was a form of systematized looting.
Many plantations were sold at sheriff's sales for lack of payment of unfair taxes. Many times the land was sold even when the taxes were paid! Owners were evicted at gunpoint by local sheriffs.
Many plantation owners returned to their land only to find squatters, black and white. When they tried to evict them, the Freedman's Bureau, and military occupational authorities refused to allow the landowners to evict them. Many landowners were told that not only could they not evict the squatters but they had to supply certain amounts of foodstuffs and shelter to the squatters whether they worked or not. Many landowners were forced to allow their land to go fallow.
Many northern whites who came to the South after the war, became squatters and the rightful owners had to fight sometimes for years to have these carpetbaggers evicted.
In some cases they described themselves as "teachers" to the blacks and had the blacks working for them on some else's land!
In many areas hired labor was impossible to find. Land values plummeted, loans could not be had. There was no Federal help. Most plantations in coastal South Carolina were eventually bought by Northern Industrialists and run as private hunting preserves.
Is there any wonder that there was resentment lasting generations?
Blacks were allowed to set up State controlled local Militias, whites were not. Many whites were intimidated by these militias and in some cases run out of their communities.
Federal troops occupied most of the major cities.

The fall out from Reconstruction is even evident in the "superior" tone some of you with a northern bias are expressing.
You had better be looking in your own backyard for racial disparity, segregation and discrimination going on, even today.
The largest group of Klansmen isn't in the South, try the Mid-west. At one time even large numbers of US Congressmen and even members of the Supreme Court were members, many from the North!
What city has the highest foreclosure rate and evidence of predatory loan practices in the on going sub prime loan debacle? Not the South. Wayyyyy up North.
Face it racial discrimination occurs North and South. To try and blame the South for the evils of racial discrimination is to discriminate against the South due to someone's twisted bias.

39th Miss Walker is right in that the south is not alone in poor race relations. Indiana was indeed the state with the largest, most active Klan up until a decade or so ago.
Someone, Ole? Booklover? "asked how long will this go on"
It iwll go on until we as a society either address the race problem in an honest intelligent manner or until the racial turmoil that is always no further than just below the surface, explodes and tears our society apart for good.
Do I have the answers, no I don't, but as long as the south is used as the whipping boy for the ills of the nation, no progress is going to be made because we ignore any attempt to fix the problems.

Bama... those laws I mentioned were still being enforced in the last twenty years; I watched it happen and know those who it happened to.

The lynchings of White League fame and later Klan use were in the South. Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, the Carolinas etc. Though as i said you can't pointg a finger at someone w/out pointing three back at yourself. The last mass lynching in the US happened in Duluth MN.

Why was all this crap allowed to happen? Because the politicians lacked the intestinal fortitude to do anything about it. Tha Army should have been sent in and crushed the enemy, yes I said the enemy as the Klan, White League and the rest of their ilk were the enemy of everything decent a true step back to barbarism... and just about the worst cowards of US history. "Redemption" & Jim Crow should never have been allowed to happen.

Miss Walker, I challenge you to find the ten wealthiest men in the South of 1860; look for a similar list of 1870... many of the same names.

As I said Reconstruction was a trainwreck and the blame cannot be soley thrown at the foot of one side or the other because the South was every bit as complicit and corrupt as the worst northerner. Who to fix the blame on? I don't care, I say fix the problem.

The idea that Florida or Atlanta aren't southern is posh. They just aren't Confederate. Over the years I've heard all kinds of posh about how areas or people weren't southern; usually it ended up w/ them not being confederate or pro confederate and all too often w/ some because they were black.

I lived & worked in the South for the best part of a decade (I've been told that didn't count either as I was a soldier for the better part of that.) I'm no Southerner and the racism I saw there was largely extinct, there were still shadows... but they were just that shadows. But those shadows were frightening.

The connection between Reconstruction, Redemption and the rise of Jim Crow (defacto segregation) are very closely connected. The failure of the US to accomplish Reconstruction allowed Redemption and Jim Crow to rise and flourish and it is a shame upon the honor of the US that it was allowed to happen.

It's nearly Christmas; I'm going to pass on to better and brighter things like talking about the men I respect and want to honor; the one who actually did the fighting and dieing instead of the stay behinders who did there best to wreck this country.

Johan,
I agree with virtually everything you said.. Reconstruction, and Jim Crow were abominations and they set the stage for the rece relations we have been trying to deal with ever since.
the one thing I do not agree with is the notion that northernors who move to the south ..Atlanta and florida automatically and immediately become southerners..they don't any more than I become a northerner since I live in Illinois. Like it or not, we are the products of our combined experiences and i could no more erase my southern heritage than I could grow wings and fly. Do I embrace everything about the south..no, but do I embrace the values of the north wholeheartedly..again no

You mention the lynching in Duluth, well, here in Springfield, ILlinois, home town of Abraham Lincoln, we are set to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Springfield race riots in which the black community was terrorized for several days and more than one person who had done absolutely nothing was killed.
there is a boatload of blame to spread around the entire nation, and nothing is being done to resolve the issues.

Yes, it is Christmas and we have much more to think about than this problem right now, but we cannot ignore and forget it because it will NOT go away.

Bama46 wrote: It has been said that the 2nd amendment is not about duck hunting. Was reconstruction about rebuilding Atlanta, Decatur, Meridian, Jackson or other southern towns?.. or was it something else?

Look at the CSA from the end of the war until today... we were conquered, beaten into submission, required to rejoin a nation that said we never left, disenfranchised (sp.. Thank you Gen Jackson!) suffered under military rule... the only section of the country that ever was, and I believe have not gotten over it yet, and have never been allowed to .

I have spent my life listening to people telling me i should get over the war.. I tell them we got over the war years ago, but we will never get over reconstruction

What think you?

Ed

Bama,

Reconstruction horrors are nonthing but fallacy. At the end of Reconstruction, the Southern states were all under the control of X-confederates and the Freedman labour was back under white control.

These vile names Carpetbaggers, Scalawgs and Radicals are all vile names to label the people who were trying to bring progressive change to the south but were crushed the the enbitted whites of the redeemer movement.

5 fish...
that is so far from truth,it bears no reply.. it is obvious you either don't know your subject or don't understand what you think you know
are you intentionally trying to antagonize this entire board

I know the Reconstruction period quite well and the Reconstruction interpretation of your's come from the Dunning school which basically describes those years from 1865 to 1877 as the darkest days in our nation history. It is a false interpretation for if you read about the period you see the white southerns complained about freedman and that x confederates were not allowed to vote. You do not read about starving people in the streets but you do read that allot of once rich people were now just average.

There was this redeemer movement that rose up of white x-confederates that slowly regain power in each state accusing the progressives of corruption and promising keep the whites safe from the Freedmen. So by 1877 redeemers control every state of the old confederacy and within years of 1877 the Supreme Court rules "separate but equal" and the "Jim Crow" laws come in full force by 1890's.

By 1877 the Freedmen labor was well under the control of the whites in the x-confederate states..

as in many things absolutism usually misses the mark when trying to ascertain "THE TRUTH" regarding a morally sensitive and factually subjective issue such as reconstruction. Usually those who espouse their views as "THE TRUTH" are deeply entrenched as well as emotionally attached to a particularly polarized school of thought regarding the issue being discussed and are loath to appreciate any information that does not reinforce their argument. Just look at American politics for a prime example. My point being that when delving into a matter like reconstruction it is important to keep an open mind regarding the facts and to realize that the truth is usually somewhere in between the extremes. Otherwise it's just an adult version of "DID NOT...DID TOO...DID NOT...DID TOO!" and the result is nothing more than a well researched shouting match.